The following is an AZPM original production.

Welcome to this edition of The Press Room from the radio studios of AZPM.

I'm your host, Steve Goldstein.

Coming up later in the program, I'll be joined by journalists to discuss the week's top stories in Tucson and the rest of the region.

But we start with a couple of opinions on Proposition 414, also known as the Safe and Vibrant City Initiative It would raise Tucson sales tax by half a percent over the course of 10 years.

Election day is March 11th, it's an all mail and ballot election, and ballots will go out on February the 12th.

Representing the side in favor of the Proposition is Pat DeConcini, managing partner of 40 Properties LLP.

Pat, thanks for joining the program, we appreciate it.

Oh, thanks for having me, Steve, glad to be here.

So let's start off with, I guess, the most obvious question, why are you in favor of the Proposition?

Well, I'm in favor of 414 because I think that we need to have an excellent Tucson.

I don't like shooting for mediocrity, I wanna go for excellence.

And that includes our police, fire, emergency services, 911, dispatch, all the first responders, as well as the hardworking people that do homeless community service.

You know, these people are working really hard day in and day out, and they're telling us that they need this to do their job, they need this funding to be excellent.

We have the excellent people, they're trained well, but they're not properly funded.

And so I don't want Tucson to be one of those towns where we have an eight and a half minute delay between calling 911 and having emergency services show up.

The difference between five minutes and eight and a half minutes is life and death.

And you can talk to our folks, not just the leadership, not just the unions, but the actual people that are working in the streets, the firefighters, the police officers, the homeless services support people.

They're working to the bone, all right?

They are really undermanned, they're underfunded, and they need this funding to be excellent at their jobs.

So that's, I think the main reason.

Okay, and I wanna follow up as a long time business leader here, Pat, what's your reaction to a couple of the leading business groups coming out in opposition to the proposition, Prop 414?

Sure, well, I guess I'd say that there's a lot of different opinions in the business community.

I'm a business owner and a business leader here in Tucson, and I strongly support it.

I support it as a citizen because I want my city to be a place where people wanna move to, where businesses want to relocate or expand opportunities and create more jobs.

I wanna be that kind of a city just as a citizen, but also as a business leader, we manage shopping centers and standalone commercial properties.

And I cannot tell you how many times I've heard from our tenants that their customers are complaining about drug use and homelessness affecting the shopping center that they operate their business out of.

So this is something that's gonna directly impact all of my tenants and the customers of my tenants.

So it's gonna be great for business, from my perspective.

Now, there may be some businesses that see a downside to this and they can explain to you why they think that is.

But from my perspective, this is a no-brainer.

I mean, the people of Tucson have been demanding that the city do something about the homelessness problem and the opioid epidemic for years.

I kinda wish they'd done this before to tell you the truth, but I'm glad they're doing it now.

And I know it's gonna help my business.

So I guess I would just say that people maybe have different opinions on that.

Some people maybe don't like it from a tax policy position, but I think they might be missing out on what's really needed here.

When you look at the dire need, to me that overcomes any type of objection in terms of your opinion on tax policy.

Pat, it sounds like based on the answer you just gave that I may know the answer to this already, but how healthy do you think Tucson's economy, the business climate is now?

And do you have any worries that the passage of Prop 414 could have a negative impact on that climate?

Or are you thinking it will have impact on that climate?

Yeah, I really do.

I really do.

I'm a big believer in something like this because it's kind of addressing exactly what people like me have been asking the city to do.

It's going to improve economic vitality.

It's going to make more businesses want to relocate here in Tucson.

I mean, it's just like the RTA and the roads.

Look, if we have terrible roads or we have terrible schools or we have terrible emergency services or we have an opioid problem that's not being addressed, is that the type of city that new people want to move to?

Is that the type of city that new businesses want to expand into?

The answer's obvious.

No, of course not.

Those are all essential things that we have to have.

They're kind of like baseline things that a really excellent city should have.

And so I think by doing this funding in Prop 414, we're going to improve the economic climate, not hurt it.

Pat, relatively short answer on this, we have about a minute or so left.

Has the city's budgeting been really hurt by action at the state level?

And is there anything that the city could be doing to work with state lawmakers, especially from this area, to avoid raising taxes in any way?

I guess I'm wondering about the relationship between the city and the state.

Has that almost in some ways forced the city's hand on the sales tax proposal?

I think to a certain degree, it definitely has.

The state is handing out less money to all the cities.

So it's not just Tucson.

The state revenues have dropped due to the flat tax and other tax policies.

So the state is not bringing in the same amount of money.

So they don't have the same amount to distribute to the city.

So yes, the city is taking a hit.

There's also a lot of federal tax dollars that were given to the city during COVID.

And I think our mayor and council to throw them a bone have done a great job of getting more than our fair share of federal grants.

But a lot of those grants are time limited.

They're going to be running out.

And I think when you look at the future, with the Trump administration, I'm not sure that we can bank on having more support from the state of Arizona, more support from the federal government.

It might be even more challenging.

So creating a separate income stream to make sure we have proper police, fire, emergency services, and a response to the homelessness and opioid epidemic.

We need to have our own independent way of generating income to support those critical needs for our community.

All right, we need to stop there.

Pat DeConcini, managing partner of 40 Properties LLP in favor of Prop 414.

Pat, thanks so much for your time.

Good luck.

And now we turn to the person representing the opposition to Proposition 414, Lisa Lovallo.

Lisa, welcome to The Press Room.

Thanks for being here.

- Thank you.

Well, so the most obvious question is why are you opposed to the proposition?

Well, I would like to say that I really don't want to be here.

- Okay.

Because I like to be in favor of things.

I like to talk about things I support, things that I can get behind.

And unfortunately, this proposition is not one of those things.

So I am opposed to it and there are a few things about this tax increase that give me pause.

And so I can share some of those with you and then talk about whatever you want to talk about.

So it strikes me that in 2020, the city council's budget was $1.5 billion.

This year, the city council passed a $2.4 billion budget.

So in five years, the city of Tucson is spending $1 billion more per year than it did just five years ago.

And they still are unable to fund police and fire adequately to provide those firefighters and those police officers with the equipment they need to keep themselves safe and to keep us safe.

I think that's dangerous and irresponsible in that it shows that the city council does not have their priorities straight as it comes to determining what our values really are here.

So that would be number one for me.

And now that they're asking for another $800 million of unrestricted funds, it just, to me, you don't provide organizations with more money whose priorities are not aligned with the values of the community.

And so again, I think they have enough money to keep the city safe.

They're not applying those dollars in the right way.

And I find that very concerning.

Okay, and you have more on the list.

What else did you do?

I do.

I would say the other thing is we talk about police and fire because that's a big part of what they're using to sell this proposition or this initiative.

What's disturbing to me is to watch the city council put the police force and the firefighters in the middle of a political battle, right?

The police force and the firefighters should not be having to go out there with a tin cup and try to get tax increases so they can get basic tools that they need to do their job.

I find that offensive and disturbing and we need to stop doing that.

I think it's disgraceful.

I think there's plenty of money in the city budget today at 2.4 billion to make our city safer.

And that once again, playing games and using our police and firefighters as political fodder, in my opinion, is wrong.

This may be on your list already as well, but most people talk about, those people who are nervous about the sales tax increase talk about how regressive it is, how it actually affects lower income residents, and also the fact that sales tax is already pretty high in Tucson.

Yeah, I completely agree on that.

I think the tax increase would give Tucson the honor of having the highest sales tax at 9.2% of any city our size in the state of Arizona.

I don't think that's an honor that we should reach for.

And yes, I agree.

When we have a poverty level in Tucson, that is 20%.

20% of people that live in our city are in adverse poverty.

And we know everyone admits and acknowledges that a sales tax is regressive and it hurts the poorest of the poor.

So again, I don't think the city council has their priorities straight because piling on more taxes for people who are on fixed incomes on the elderly and on the working poor just is wrong.

So I think that's another big reason to say no to this.

May I ask you one other question related to the spending priorities of the council because you make an interesting point about the budget has grown by a billion dollars in five years.

There are some though who will say, well, the city, first of all inflation, but then the city was forced to make certain decisions it may not have wanted to because of cuts at the legislative level or the flat tax supported by former Governor Ducey.

Does any of that ring true for you?

You know, I think the city of Tucson has a lot of excuses about why they spend too much money and that they should be looking at taking a very deep dive into what their priorities are and prioritizing as things evolve and change where resources need to be placed first before they just run out and say, the sky is falling, all this money is being taken so we need more.

So I never hear the city council talking about we really need to have a conversation about how we can be more efficient, how we can save money, how we can tighten our belts a little bit like every family in Tucson is having to do right now who has to buy eggs.

Exactly.

The other thing I think that gives me pause about this is how the city council is doing this.

So they've decided to have a special election in March instead of the regular, put this on the regular ballot in November.

And they know that special elections have extremely low voter turnout.

So less than one in four Tucsonans will vote for this tax in March versus over 70% who would vote for it in a November ballot.

And what disturbs me about that is that they know that that happens.

So they've spent a million dollars on a special election to ensure that very few people vote knowing that they're not gonna hear from the majority of the people.

And I think that's also dirty politics.

A special election to me is just a game and it does not get the voter turnout or the dialogue necessary to make good public policy.

They should be having this if they want to have this conversation, they should have it in November when candidates talk about it, when the community is very engaged and they're not doing that because they know that they will have low voter turnout.

I don't like that.

You may have already answered this and talking about the budget priorities of the council, but I do wonder, do you have concerns at all?

I know you don't want the sales tax increase, but let's say the sales tax increase were distributed in a different way.

Obviously police and fire is important, but as you said, maybe they should already be funding that at proper levels.

The priorities for it were different.

If it were not for 10 years or if we're for a shorter period of time, is there anything about this particular sales tax that might make you less inclined to oppose it?

Well, that's the challenge is that, another thing that is a concern to me is that the city council did not make any effort to reach out to the business community to have the discussion that you are asking me to have with you.

It's too late for that because they put it on the ballot.

And so what's there is what they're going to supposedly spend the money on, even though those funds are unrestricted.

So I think it should be a concern to everyone.

And this is why every business organization that I'm aware of is opposed to this.

Not because we don't want to have a conversation about what's in the best interest of Tucson, but we want to have a conversation about what should the priorities be, starting with the funds we have today and reallocating those.

And then if there is a legitimate need beyond that, then let's have the business community help you get a tax increase passed.

Let's work together.

Other communities do that.

Other cities, other business communities in other cities work with their city council to create fair and sustainable budget policy.

We don't do that here.

We're down to only about 30 seconds left.

I want to have you make a final point or a final pitch for me.

My final point really is that I'm opposed to this because it's not a good way to do a tax.

The conversation has not happened in a way that it needs to to have good policy.

Key stakeholders are not being advised.

Poor Tucson families can't afford more sales taxes.

It's just been done the wrong way.

It's the wrong time.

And I think that if we're going to do something like that, we need more time to discuss it.

So I don't think now's the time.

Lisa Lovallo, thanks again for being on The Press Room.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Take care.

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AZPM News at news.azpm.org Welcome back to The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

A couple of journalists joining us for the rest of the program.

Christopher Conover of AZPM, John Washington of AZ Luminaria Guys, welcome back.

Thanks for being here.

John, you were the person I'm gonna give credit to for breaking the story related to Pima County, the memo from Pima County Attorney Laura Conover related to immigration enforcement, how Pima County employees should handle it.

And now just a few days ago was made public so everyone knows what was in that memo.

Not specific enough a question, but what really stands out to you after having seen it before, anything that becomes even a bigger deal to you as we're looking at this for folks of Pima County?

Well, I think what we're seeing is just how local officials are trying to navigate this new atmosphere.

And when we first heard about the memo, we didn't see very much of it.

It was protected by client attorney privilege.

And we saw a snippet of it from a memo that Jan Lesher, the county administrator, did release to the public.

And that was basically saying that in all county buildings, there should be a sign in large letters saying that warrants are basically required if they're gonna be federal law enforcement activity.

Then when we saw the memo, the full memo, from Laura Conover, the county attorney earlier this week, I think what kind of surprised me was that I would say, in a nutshell, it said follow the law.

There was two basic questions that she said were asked of her office.

At the beginning, one was more or less, can we impede federal law enforcement officers from accessing the building?

The answer was no.

And the second one was asking if they are specifically targeting people with DACA, Deferred Action, for Childhood Arrivals status.

And there wasn't a very clear answer on that, but the takeaway was also no.

So the guideline was you should follow the law, but I think there's a lot more to discuss about how they're understanding this current situation.

Following the law always sounds good, Chris, but we have no idea how many different things are gonna be going on here.

Well, exactly.

And what I think is interesting, and I do have to point out because we always do this, Laura Conover is not related to me in any way whatsoever.

But what I find interesting is exactly what John just said.

It said follow the law.

And if you look at what the Tucson Unified School District said with regards to potential raids that people are concerned about at TUSD, they said the same thing, follow the law.

And it seems like really what we're hearing from county officials, at least here right now, is follow the law.

And these have always been our policies, so we're just reiterating them.

The policy of follow the law.

Now, one of the things that Laura Conover brought up was you should get solid ID from someone who's claiming to be an officer, so that we make sure this is not fraudulent.

And if it is a judicial warrant, she or the county has the right to go to court and appeal that, so there needs to be some time.

Thank you, Chris, because I wanted to ask John in your story the in your story the difference between an administrative warrant and a judicial warrant.

Right, there's also an element of sort of public education to this memo, which was kind of interesting that it wasn't released publicly and had to be, that the Board of Supervisors had to vote on releasing it and waving that attorney client privilege.

But yeah, there is a very consequential difference between an administrative warrant and a judicial warrant.

Judicial warrant is signed by a judge.

It is what is specified in the Fourth Amendment, protections against search and seizures, and an administrative warrant is signed by an ICE officer, and it does not automatically guarantee that people can access a person's body or car or building.

I think, though, there's also this sort of distinction that you can hear public officials trying to both play a messaging game and abide by the laws.

Tucson is not a sanctuary city, but it was designated a welcoming city to migrants.

Mayor Romero in November said that she was gonna fight against family separations, but now there are threats of persecution, oh, sorry, prosecution, against those city officials withholding of funds, and I think this comes at a very interesting time, especially with 414 on the ballot soon, if the federal government is gonna withhold funds from some of these jurisdictions, because of their stance on immigration, this is gonna affect the ballot, potentially.

The new attorney general who was just voted on sworn in this week, US Attorney General Pam Bondi, from my home state, exactly up, she apparently has told the Department of Justice, "Look at these sanctuary cities and prosecute," and while, as John said, Tucson is not a sanctuary city, I don't think Mayor Romero or members of the Board of Supervisors or anybody else wants to be perp-walked, because you know that that would be a big deal, and so they are really riding a line.

Her memo goes a little, Pam Bondi's memo goes a little bit further than that.

It does say that they will look into all sanctuary cities, but it also says that anyone impeding any federal law enforcement activity could be prosecuted, so it's not just having that designation that could put you on the target list.

Chris, let's change up.

John referred to Prop 414.

We began the program with a couple of interviews related to that.

What about the dynamic to you?

One of the things we hear is, of course, the elections in March.

Turnouts going to be terrible.

You have some major business groups who are opposed to you, you have other business men, business women, who are not opposed to it, and everyone is sort of saying, "Well, police and fire, yes, we need more for that.

"Yes, we need to have more solutions "for folks who are unhoused," but does this seem like something that's going to proceed?

I was surprised at some of the negativity I heard about it regarding, considering what the priorities for it are.

It's an interesting one, and as you brought up, and as the guests previously brought up, it is a special election which has raised some questions.

There are also questions, what happens going forward, because there's going to be another tax increase, proposed tax increase on the ballot coming up.

I guess it'll be next year for the RTA, the Regional Transportation Authority, so does one hurt the other?

Unhoused is an issue that if you talk to people in restaurants, people in your neighborhood, everybody's talking about it, so something needs to be done.

Police and fire, most people support the police and the fire, especially when we need them.

So it's an interesting conundrum, and putting it in a special election, right after an election, right before an election, is an interesting tactic.

John, of course, sales tax regressive, hurts everyone but hurts low-income folks, by far the most.

That's not a great look, is it, necessarily, to pay for some of these other things by raising sales tax again?

Yeah, I think that is one of the reasons that people have come out against the bill, or sorry, the proposition.

Another is that there's so much in it.

We haven't seen a sales tax proposal like this that would fund so many different things.

They are unrestricted funds, but there's 50-some line items in this, and they are trying to tackle a diverse array of problems, and how do they actually speak with each other?

I was speaking to the city manager yesterday, and he was saying that these are synergistic attempts to try to address these problems.

We're looking at prevention, and we're looking at response.

And yet, I think a lot of people recognize that, maybe, that they haven't found the balance right, and so just throwing 800 more million dollars at it while they're starting to figure it out may be a little bit too big of a pill swallow at this point.

And it fascinates me, the who's for it, who's against it.

We have the against it, the Chamber of Commerce, but for it is Fletcher McCusker, who does Rio Nuevo, which is all downtown businesses and redevelopment, and you would think that those two groups would be hand in hand.

Now, Rio Nuevo has not come out with an official.

It's just Fletcher McCusker himself.

But you would think those two would be much more aligned, and they're not on this one.

John, last one on this.

Have you seen a lot of money being spent on both sides?

Because, again, a special election, low turnout, and we always talk about money spent on elections, whether it's ads or mailers, et cetera.

Yeah, no, I actually haven't.

I don't think there's been a ton spent on it.

And your previous guest was also saying that there is a historically low turnout.

One of the other things that I think is interesting is that the city manager also mentioned that if we don't pass it, we'll be fine for a year, we'll figure things out.

Then why exactly is there such a rush to get it in this special election, can't wait till November, when there will be more turnout, when more people will actually wait in?

I think there's a lot of questions that are still unanswered, really.

That is.

About 90 seconds left.

And John, you can feel free to bow to Mr. Conover on this.

We're gonna give him a little bit of time.

300th edition of your podcast, The Buzz.

300, yeah.

How many things last 300 anythings?

Well, that's exactly right.

When we started this show in 2018, our big concern was could we come up with a topic every week for the show?

Could we come up with 50 topics and we've now managed to fill 300 new episodes?

And sure, we've had some repeat issues, but yeah, we were pretty surprised to get it.

But what really stands out to me is the amazing progress and the impact that you had very recently related to water issues.

And you were giving an idea of how many downloads there were, which was incredible as well.

Remind folks of that.

Right, for The Buzz, it's on the radio side.

It airs three times, twice on Friday, once on Saturday.

It also airs in Yuma.

And then we have about 7,000 podcast listeners.

We then spun some of the topics into TAPPED, our water podcast, which ended up with 400,000 downloads.

That's absolutely incredible.

So congratulations.

So if you have not heard The Buzz, please go to azpm.org.

If you can't find it on the radio, you can hear it there.

Christopher Conover, thank you for being here.

John Washington, AZ Luminaria, great to see you as well.

Thanks very much.

- Thank you.

We'll have another edition of The Press Room coming up next week.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

Thanks very much for your time and enjoy the rest of your night.